"And now, Walter, you are free," said Mr Paton. "From _us_ you will hear no more of this offence. It is nearly dinner-time. Come; I will walk with you to hall."
He laid his hand on the boy"s shoulder, and they walked downstairs and across the court. Walter was deeply grateful that he did so, for he had heard rumours of the scorn and indignation with which the news of his conduct had been received by the elder and more influential portions of the school. He had dreaded unspeakably the first occasion when it would be necessary to meet them again, but he felt that Mr Paton"s countenance and kindness had paved the way for him, and smoothed his most formidable trial. It had been beyond his warmest hopes that he should be able to face them so. He had never dared to expect this open proof, that the person who had suffered chiefly from this act would also be the first to show that he had not cast him off as helpless or worthless, but was ready to receive him into favour once again.
The corridor was full of boys waiting for the dinner bell, and they divided respectfully to leave a pa.s.sage for Mr Paton, and touched their hats as he pa.s.sed them with his hand still on Walter"s shoulder, while Walter walked with downcast eyes beside him, not once daring to look up.
And as the boy pa.s.sed them, humbled and penitent, with Mr Paton"s hand resting upon him, there was not one of those who saw it that did not learn from that sight a lesson of calm forgiveness as n.o.ble and as forcible as any lesson which they could learn at Saint Winifred"s School.
Walter sat at dinner pale and crying, but unpitied. "Alas for the rarity of Christian charity under the sun!"--the worst construction had a.s.siduously been put upon what he had done, and nearly all the boys hastily condemned it, not only as an ungentlemanly, but also as an inexcusable and unpardonable act. One after another, as they pa.s.sed him after dinner, they cut him dead. Several of the masters, including Mr Percival, whom Walter had hitherto loved and respected more than any of them, because he had been treated by him with marked kindness, did the same. Walter met Mr Percival in the playground and touched his cap; Mr Percival glanced at him contemptuously for a moment, and then turned his head aside without noticing the salute. It may seem strange, but we must remember that to all who hear of any wrong act by report only, it presents itself as a mere naked fact--a bare result without preface or palliation. The subtle grades of temptation which led to it--the violent outburst of pa.s.sion long pent-up which thus found its consummation--are unknown or forgotten, and the deed itself, isolated from all that rendered it possible, receives unmitigated condemnation.
All that anyone took the trouble to know or to believe about Walter"s sc.r.a.pe was, that he had broken open a master"s private desk, and in revenge had purposely burnt a most valuable ma.n.u.script; and for this, sentence was pa.s.sed upon him broadly and in the gross.
Poor Walter! those were dark days for him; but Henderson and Kenrick stuck fast by him, and little Arthur Eden still looked up to him with unbounded grat.i.tude and affection, and he felt that the case was not hopeless. Kenrick, indeed, seemed to waver once or twice. He sought Walter and shook hands with him at once, but still he was not with him, Walter fancied, so much as he had been or might have been, till, after a short struggle, his natural impulse of generosity won the day. As for Henderson, Walter thought he could have died for him, so much he loved him for his kindness in this hour of need; and Eden never left his side when he could creep there to console him by merry playfulness, or to be his companion when he would otherwise have been alone.
The boys had been truly sorry to hear of Mr Paton"s loss; it roused all their most generous feelings. That evening as they came out of chapel they all gathered round the iron gates. The intention had been to groan at poor Walter. He knew of it perfectly well, for Henderson had prepared him for it, and expressed his determination to walk by his side. It was for him a moment of keen anguish, and that anguish betrayed itself in his scared and agitated look. But he was spared this last drop in the cup of punishment. The mere sight of him showed the boys that he had suffered bitterly enough already. When they looked at him they had not the heart to hurt and shame him any more. Mr Paton"s open forgiveness of that which had fallen most severely on himself changed the current of their feelings. Instead of groaning Walter they let him pa.s.s by, and waited till Mr Paton came out of the chapel door, and as he walked across the court the boys all followed him with hearty cheers.
Mr Paton did not like the demonstration, although he appreciated the kindly and honourable motives which had given rise to it. He was not a man who courted popularity, and this external sign of it was, as he well knew, the irregular expression of an evanescent feeling. So he took no further notice of the boys" cheers than by slightly raising his cap, and by one stately inclination of the head, and then he walked on with his usual quiet dignity of manner to his own rooms. But after this he every now and then took an opportunity to walk with Walter; and almost every Sunday evening he might have been seen with him pacing, after morning chapel, up and down the broad walk of the masters" garden, while Walter walked unevenly beside him, in vain endeavours to keep step with his long slow stride.
A letter from Dr Lane brought Walter"s father to Saint Winifred"s the next day. Why dwell on their sad and painful meeting? But the pain of it soon wore off as they interchanged that sweet and frank communion of thoughts and sympathies that still existed as it had ever done between them. They had a long, long walk upon the sh.o.r.e, and at every step Walter seemed to in-breathe fresh strength, and hope, and consolation, and Mr Evson seemed to acquire new love for, and confidence in, his unhappy little son, so that when in the evening he kissed him and said "good-bye," at the top of the same hill where they had parted before, Mr Evson felt more happily and gratefully secure of his radical integrity, now that the boy had acquired the strength which comes through trial, through failure, and through suffering, than he had done before when he had left him only with the strength of early principle and untested innocence of heart.
But long years after, when Walter was a man, and when he had been separated for years from all intelligence of Mr Paton, there emanated from a quiet country vicarage a now celebrated edition of the "Major Prophets," an edition which made the author a high reputation, and secured for him in the following year the Deanery of --. And in the preface to that edition the reader may still find the following pa.s.sage, which, as Walter saw even then, those long years after, he could not read without a thrill of happy, yet penitent emotion. It ran thus--
"This edition of the "Major Prophets" has been the chosen work of the author"s leisure, and he is almost afraid to say how many of the best years of his life have been spent upon it. A strange fortune has happened to it. Years ago it was finished, and it was written out, and ready for the press. At that time it was burnt--no matter under what circ.u.mstances--by a boy"s hand. At first, the author never hoped to have the courage or power to resume and finish the task again. But it pleased G.o.d, Who sent him this trial, to provide him also with leisure, and opportunity, and resolution, so that the old misfortune is now at last repaired. It is for the sake of one person, and one person only, that these private matters are intruded on the reader"s notice; but that person, if his eye should ever fall on these lines, will know also why the word "repaired" has been printed in larger letters. And I would also tell him with all kindness, that it has pleased G.o.d to bring out of the rash act of his boyhood nothing but good. The following commentary is, I humbly trust, far more worthy of its high subject, now that it has received the maturer consideration of my advancing years, than it would have been had it seen the light at Saint Winifred"s long ago. I write this for the sake of the boy who then wept for what seemed an _irreparable_ fault; and I add thankfully, that never for a moment have I retracted my then forgiveness; that I think of his after efforts with kindliness and affection; and that he has, and always will have, my best prayers for his interest and welfare.
"H. Paton."
CHAPTER TEN.
UPHILLWARDS.
"But that Conscience makes me firm.
The boon companion, who her strong breastplate Buckles on him that feels no guilt within, And bids him on and fear not."
Dante, c. xxviii.
"Qui s"excuse s"accuse." "If a character can"t defend itself, it"s not worth defending." "No one was ever written down, except by himself."
These, and proverbs like these, express the common and almost instinctive feeling, that self-defence under calumny is generally unsuccessful, and almost always involves a loss of dignity. Partly from this cause, and partly from penitence for his real errors, and partly from scorn at the malice that misrepresented him, and the Pharisaism of far worse offenders that held aloof from his misfortune, Walter said nothing to exculpate his conduct, or to shield himself from the silent indignation, half real and half affected, which weighed heavily against him.
The usual consequences followed; the story of his misdoing was repeated and believed in the least mitigated form, and this version gained credence and currency because it was uncontradicted. The school society bound his sin upon him; they retained it, and it was retained. It burdened his conscience with a galling weight, because by his fellows it remained long unforgiven. At the best, those were days of fiery trial to that overcharged young heart. He had not only lost all immediate influence, but as he looked forward through the vista of his school-life, he feared that he should never entirely regain it. Even if he should in time become a monitor, he felt as if half his authority must be lost while this stigma was branded so deeply on his name.
Yet it was a beautiful sight to see how bravely and manfully this young boy set himself to re-establish the reputation he had destroyed, and since he could not "build upon the _foundations_ of yesterday," to build upon its _ruins_; to see with what touching humility he accepted undeserved scorn, and with what touching grat.i.tude he hailed the scantiest kindness; to see how he bore up unflinchingly under every difficulty, accepted his hard position among unsympathising schoolfellows, and made the most of it, without anger and without complaint. He could see in after years that those days were to him a time of unmitigated blessing. They taught him lessons of manliness, of endurance, of humility. The necessity of repairing an error and recovering a failure became to him a more powerful stimulus than the hope of avoiding it altogether. The hour of punishment, which was bitter as absinthe to his taste, became sweet as honey in his memory.
Above all, these days taught him, in a manner never to be forgotten, the invaluable lesson that the sense of having done an ill deed is the very heaviest calamity that an ill deed ensures, and that in life there is no single secret of happiness comparable to the certain blessing brought with it by a conscience void of all offence.
Perhaps the strain would have been too great for his youthful spirits, and might have left on his character an impress of permanent melancholy, derived from thus perpetually being reminded that he had gone wrong, but for a school sermon which Mr Paton preached about this time, and which Walter felt was meant in part for him. It was on the danger and unwisdom of brooding continually on what is over; and it was preached upon the text, "I will restore to you the years which the locust hath eaten, the canker-worm, the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army."
"The past is past," said the preacher; "its sins and sorrows are irrevocably over; why dwell upon it now? Do not waste the present, with all its opportunities, in a hopeless and helpless retrospect. The worst of us need not despair, much less those who may have been betrayed into sudden error by some moment of unguarded pa.s.sion. There lies the future before you; onwards then, and forwards! it is yet an innocent, it may be a happy, future. Take it with prayerful thankfulness, and fling the withered part aside. Thus, although thus only, can you recover your neglected opportunities. Do this in hope and meekness, and G.o.d will make up to you for the lost past; He Who inhabiteth eternity will stretch forth out of His eternity a forgiving hand, and touch into green leaf again the years which the locust hath eaten." How eagerly Walter Evson drank in those words! That day at least he felt that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of G.o.d.
If Walter had been old enough to be an observer of character, he might have gathered out of his difficulties the materials for some curious observation on the manner in which he was treated by different boys.
Many, like Harpour and Cradock, made, of course, no sort of difference in their behaviour towards him, because they set up no pretence of condemnation; others, like Anthony and Franklin, had been nearly as bad as himself in the matter, and therefore their relations to him remained quite unaltered. But there were many boys who, like Jones, either cut him or were cold to him, not because they really felt any moral anger at a fault which was much less heinous in reality than many which they daily committed, but because he was, for the time, unpopular, and they did not care to be seen with an unpopular boy. On the other hand, through a feeling, which at the time they could not understand, a few of the very best boys, some of the wisest, the steadiest, the n.o.blest, seemed drawn to him by some new tie; and in a very short time he began to know friends among them in whose way he might not otherwise have been thrown. Daubeny, for instance, than whom, although the boys chose to make him something of a b.u.t.t, there was no more conscientious fellow at Saint Winifred"s, sought Walter out on every possible occasion, and when they were alone spoke to him, in his gentle and honest way, many a cheering and kindly word. Another friend of this sort (whom Walter already knew slightly through Kenrick, who was in the form below him), was a boy named Power. There was something in Power most attractive: his clear eyes, and innocent expression of face, his unvarying success in all school compet.i.tions, his quiet and graceful manners, and even the coldness and reserve which made him stand somewhat aloof from the herd of boys, mixing with very few of them, firmly and un.o.btrusively a.s.suming an altogether higher tone than theirs, and bestowing his confidence and friendship on hardly any--all tended to make him a marked character, and to confer on his intimacy an unusual value. Walter, to whom as yet he had hardly spoken, thought him self-centred and reserved, and yet saw something beautiful and fascinating even in his exclusiveness; he felt that he could have liked him much, but, as he was several forms lower than Power, never expected to become one of his few a.s.sociates. But during his troubles Power so openly showed that he regarded him with respect and kindness, and was so clearly the first to make advances, that Walter gladly and gratefully accepted the proffered friendship.
It happened thus: One day, about a fortnight after his last escapade, Walter was amusing himself alone, as he often did, upon the sh.o.r.e. The sh.o.r.e was very dear to him. I almost pity a boy whose school is not by the seaside. He found on the sh.o.r.e both companionship and occupation.
He never felt lonely there. He could sit there by the hour, either in calm or storm, watching the sea-birds dip their wings which flashed in the sunlight, as they pounced down on some unwary fish; or listening to the silken rustle and sweet monotony of the waves plashing musically upon the yellow sands on some fine day. On this evening the tide was coming in, and Walter had amused himself by standing on some of the lumps of granite tossed about the sh.o.r.e until the advancing waves encroached upon and surrounded his little island, and gave him just room to jump to land. He was standing on one of these great stones watching the sunset, and laughing to himself at the odd gambols of two or three porpoises that kept rolling about in a futile manner across the little bay, when he heard a pleasant voice say to him--
"I say, Evson, are you going to practise the old style of martyrdom--tie yourself to a stake and let the tide gradually drown you?"
Looking round he was surprised to see Power standing alone on the sands, and to see also that his little island was so far surrounded that he could not get to sh.o.r.e without being wet up to the knees.
"Hallo!" he said; "I see I must take off my shoes and stockings, and wade."
But on the slippery piece of rock upon which he was standing he had no room to do this without losing his balance and tumbling over; so Power had in a moment taken off his own shoes and stockings, turned up his trousers above the knees, and waded up to him.
"Now," he said, "get on my back, and I"ll carry you in unwetted."
"Thanks, Power," he said, as Power deposited him on the sand; "I"m much obliged."
Not knowing whether Power would like to be seen with him or not, he looked at him shyly, and was walking off in another direction, when Power, who was putting on his stockings again, said to him playfully--
"What, Walter; haven"t you the grace to wait for me, after my having delivered you from such a noyade? Excuse my calling you Walter; I hear Kenrick and Henderson do it, and somehow you"re one of those fellows whom one meets now and then, whose Christian name seems to suit them more naturally than the other."
"By all means call me Walter, Power; and I"ll wait for you gladly if you like," said Walter, blushing as he added, "I thought you might not like to walk with me."
"Not like? Nonsense. I should like it particularly. Let"s take a turn along the sh.o.r.e; we shall just have time before roll-call."
Walter pointed out to him the droll porpoises which had absorbed his attention, and while they stood looking and laughing at them, Henderson came up un.o.bserved, and patting Walter on the back, observed poetically--
"Why are your young hearts sad, oh beautiful children of morning?
Why do your young eyes gaze timidly over the sea?"
"Where _did_ you crib that quotation from, Flip," asked Power laughing; "your mind"s like a shallow brook, and the colour of it always shows the stratum through which you have been flowing last."
"Shallow brook, quotha?" said Henderson; "a deep and mighty river, sir, you mean; irresistible by any Power."
"Oh, _do_ shut up. Why was I born with a name that could be punned on?
No more puns, Flip, if you love me," said Power; and they all three walked under the n.o.ble Norman archway that formed the entrance to the school.
"By the powers," said Henderson to Walter, as the other left them, "you _have_ got a new friend worth having, Walter. _He_ doesn"t make himself at home with every one, I can tell you; and if he and Dubbs cultivate you, I should think it"s about time for anyone else to be ashamed of cutting you, my boy."
"I"m quite happy now," said Walter; "with you and Kenrick and him for friends. I don"t care so much for the rest. I wonder why he likes me?"
"Well, because he thinks the fellows a great deal too hard on you for one thing. How very good and patient you"ve been, Walter, under it all."
"It is hard sometimes, Flip, but I deserve it. Only now and then I"m afraid that you and Ken will get quite tired of me, I"ve so few to speak to. Harpour and that lot would be glad enough that I should join them, I know, and but for you and Ken I should have been driven to do it."
"Never mind, Walter, my boy; the fellows"ll come round in time."
So, step by step, with the countenance of some true and worthy friends, and by the help of a stout and uncorrupted heart, by penitence and by kindliness, did our brave little Walter win his way. He was helped, too, greatly, by his achievements in the games. At football he played with a vigour and earnestness which carried everything before it. He got several bases, and was the youngest boy in the school who ever succeeded in doing this. Gradually but surely his temporary unpopularity gave way; and even before he began to be generally recognised again, he bade fair _ultimately_ to gain a high position in the estimation of all his schoolfellows.
There was one scene which he long remembered, and which was very trying to go through. One fine afternoon the boys" prize for the highest jump was to be awarded, and as the school were all greatly interested in the compet.i.tion, they were a.s.sembled in a dense circle in the green playground, leaving s.p.a.ce for the jumpers in the middle. The fine weather had also tempted nearly all the inhabitants of Saint Winifred"s to be spectators of the contest, and numbers of ladies were present, for whom the boys had politely left a s.p.a.ce within the circle. When the chief jumping prize had been won by an active fellow in the sixth-form, another prize was proposed for all boys under fifteen.